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AAMC Urges End of Sequestration

November 15, 2013—AAMC President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, M.D., Nov. 12 urged the leaders of the House-Senate budget conference committee “to work together on a solution that replaces sequestration with a balanced approach to deficit reduction.”

The letter notes, “Enacted and proposed cuts in NIH funding threaten current and emerging basic research opportunities across the country, as well as the clinical studies that are essential to bring scientific discoveries from the bench to the bedside.” The letter also warns that these cuts “will discourage young people from careers in medical research, risking the loss of the next generation of innovators and their ideas.”

“Sequestration also is undermining ongoing efforts to shape the health care workforce, adversely affecting patients, practicing health professionals, and the pipeline to the health professions,” the letter states, adding that “[t]hese threats come as the nation grapples with critical physician and other health professional shortages.” The letter describes the impact of the sequestration cuts on the Title VII health programs, the National Health Services Corps, and the patients they serve.

The AAMC letter states that “sequestration is reducing Medicare hospital and physician payments at a time when providers currently face a broad range of upcoming Medicare reimbursement cuts and Medicare already fails to cover the cost of care.”

The letter adds, “Sequestration also is reducing Medicare’s long-standing support for graduate medical education (GME) and having a significant impact on Medicare beneficiaries, patients, and teaching hospitals across the country as training programs are limiting, and in some cases reducing, the number of residents trained.”